---
title: 'Staff Robotics Control Engineer - Whole-Body Control (Wheeled Platform) at Humanoid'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-robotics-control-engineer-whole-body-control-wheeled-platform-humanoid-ert3de8we21z'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-05'
---

# Staff Robotics Control Engineer - Whole-Body Control (Wheeled Platform) at Humanoid

- **Company:** [Humanoid](https://feeny.ai/companies/humanoid)
- **Location:** London, United Kingdom
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/humanoid/c997551f-2678-497a-9c12-aef91f766359

## Job description

Here at Humanoid, we believe in a future where robots amplify human potential. That’s why we’ve set out on a mission to build the world’s most capable, commercially-scalable, and safe humanoid robots. We’re bringing that mission to life with HMND‑01 - our rapidly developed humanoid platform being deployed in real industrial environments - and we’re growing the team to take it even further.

## About the Role

We are looking for a Staff Robotics Control Engineer to join our Control Team in London and lead the evolution of whole-body control for our Wheeled Alpha platform - a humanoid whose whole body spans a wheeled base, torso and two arms, controlled as one coordinated system. We need genuine depth in classical whole-body control. You should know hierarchical and weighted QP formulations from the inside - not as a library you have called, but as something you have derived, implemented, tuned, profiled and debugged on real hardware under demo pressure. You should have opinions about strict hierarchies versus soft-weighted stacks, regularisation and nullspace behaviour, what to do when a task set becomes infeasible, and how to keep a redundant system clear of singularities without it feeling sluggish. Alongside that depth, you will set technical direction and mentor a strong team of control engineers.

## What You'll Do

Whole-Body Control Architecture & Algorithms:

- Lead the evolution of the Wheeled Alpha whole-body controller: task formulation, prioritisation, weighting, constraint handling and solver selection.
- Coordinate wheeled base, torso and dual-arm motion within a single whole-body formulation, with base motion that tracks commanded targets accurately and stays well-behaved under aggressive commands and long-duration operation.
- Own the constraint layer - self-collision avoidance, joint and velocity limit guarding, and singularity handling - plus feasibility handling and recovery when the solver fails.
- Drive the evolution toward predictive formulations: evaluate and develop MPC-based whole-body control where anticipating dynamics and constraints outperforms instantaneous QP resolution.

Dynamics, Compliance & Payload:

- Own the dynamic models the controller runs on - inertial, gravity and friction modelling, system identification, and online payload estimation - so the robot knows what it is carrying and controls accordingly.
- Advance compliance and force behaviour - impedance, admittance and force control that stays compliant at contact - and extend payload capability without sacrificing either.
- Own stability-aware behaviour under changing payload and dynamic motion

Safety Integration:

- Make whole-body control a first-class citizen of the safety architecture: the controller must accept and honour requests from dedicated safety compute - velocity capping, controlled deceleration, constrained operating envelopes - provably and without degrading motion quality.
- Co-own the controls-to-safety interface with the safety team, and design control behaviour so that safety interventions are graceful rather than abrupt.

Technical Leadership:

- Define the performance metrics for whole-body control and insist on deterministic, reproducible evaluation of every change, in simulation and on hardware.
- Mentor control engineers on optimisation-based control, numerical robustness and hardware debugging; act as reviewer of record for the most consequential changes.
- Work with hardware teams so control constraints and mechanical design decisions stay coherent.

## What We're Looking For

- Deep, demonstrable expertise in optimisation-based whole-body control: hierarchical and weighted QP formulations, task prioritisation, constraint handling, and the numerical realities of solving them inside a real-time loop.
- Strong command of the classical WBC toolkit - operational space and task-space control, inverse dynamics and IK formulations, redundancy resolution, nullspace projection, impedance and admittance control, contact and force control - and working knowledge of MPC formulations for whole-body or mobile-manipulation control.
- Deployed whole-body controllers on real high-DoF hardware (humanoids, mobile manipulators, dual-arm or legged platforms), including coordinating base and manipulator motion.
- Practical fluency with QP/NLP solvers and their failure modes: conditioning, infeasibility, warm starting, solve-time budgets, and what to do at the limit.
- Strong dynamic modelling foundations: rigid body kinematics/dynamics (Jacobians, dynamics formulations, URDF-based modelling), inertial and friction system identification, and payload/external-load estimation.
- Expert modern C++ for real-time control with Python for analysis and prototyping.
- Track record of taking control algorithms to production reliability rather than to a paper or a one-off demo, plus demonstrated technical leadership and mentoring.

## What We Offer

- Competitive equity: stock options with meaningful upside as we scale.
- 30+ paid days off, including 23 days of annual leave, all UK bank holidays, and additional company closure days (including Christmas–New Year shutdown).
- Private healthcare, including virtual and in-person care.
- Pension scheme with 8% total contribution (5% employee, 3% employer) on full earnings.
- Free daily breakfast, catered lunch, and snacks in-office.
- Work at the frontier - collaborate daily with world-class engineers, researchers, and product experts building the next generation of AI and humanoid robotics.
- Real ownership - direct access to founding leadership, meaningful input on product direction, and the ability to drive key initiatives from day one.

## About Humanoid

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Humanoid builds commercially scalable, safe, and reliable humanoid robots designed to automate labor-intensive industrial tasks across warehousing, logistics, manufacturing, and retail.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage)
- **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom (HQ) with offices in Cambridge, MA, USA; Burnaby, BC, Canada; and additional presence in Germany, Georgia, and the UAE.
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Artem Sokolov (CEO & Founder)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Robotics Engineering, Humanoid Robotics, Industrial Automation, Artificial Intelligence
- **Target customers**: B2B / Enterprise — industrial sectors including retail, e-commerce, third-party logistics (3PL), manufacturing, and automotive.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Empowering humanity by building the most reliable, safe, and helpful humanoid robots.” The company aims to free people from repetitive, dangerous, and tedious work, allowing them to engage in more creative and meaningful activities.

## Products & Services
- **HMND 01 Alpha Wheeled**: A robust industrial-grade wheeled humanoid robot designed for material handling, pick-and-place, and visual inspection in warehouses and factories. Prioritizes reliability, low total cost of ownership (TCO), and minimal maintenance.
- **HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal**: A bipedal humanoid robot for more complex environments requiring advanced locomotion, navigation of confined spaces, and higher dexterity. Features human-level manipulation speeds and walking speeds up to 1.5 m/s.
- **KinetIQ**: An AI framework for orchestrating fleets of humanoid robots across both wheeled and bipedal platforms, enabling centralized control and task optimization.
- **Modular Garments**: Exchangeable protective “garments” that allow HMND 01 robots to adapt to different use cases and environments, minimizing contamination and collision damage while enabling functional customization.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed.
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$50 million** (Seed round closed October 2025, with 1 lead investor).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Strategic partners include leading global companies in AI, cloud computing, and research. Specific partner names are not publicly listed on the website, but the company highlights collaboration with commercial partners to scale deployment.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount grew **139.2% YoY** to ~182 employees (as of mid-2026), with 65 active job postings.
  - Opened offices in London, Boston, and Vancouver within its first year.
  - Team includes talent recruited from major robotics and AI firms: Sanctuary AI, Boston Dynamics, Dyson, Arrival, Ocado Technology, 1X, Wayve, Apptronik, and Brain Corp.
  - Focus on initial target sectors representing a combined $12 trillion in annual payroll and 250 million workers.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Human-centric design**: The world is already designed for humans, so humanoids can seamlessly integrate into existing environments without costly redesign.
- **Modularity**: HMND 01’s hardware/software modularity enables multi-task performance and easy repurposing, reducing the need for specialized robots.
- **Reliability & low TCO**: Prioritizing hardware and software stability over raw performance to deliver industrial-grade robustness suitable for mass commercialization.
- **KinetIQ fleet orchestration AI**: Proprietary framework for managing mixed fleets of wheeled and bipedal robots, differentiating from competitors focused on single-form-factor robots.
- **Experienced leadership**: CEO Artem Sokolov previously scaled a family manufacturing business into a billion-dollar enterprise (EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2021). The CTO, Jarad Cannon, has extensive experience translating research into deployment-ready robotics systems.

## Strategic Focus
- **Near-term (2027)**: Deploy robots for physical tasks in manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, and retail — tackling repetitive, dangerous, and tedious manual work.
- **Medium-term (2029)**: Expand into the service sector, targeting the 70-80% of the global economy that will be services, with a focus on assisting an aging population (1.4B people over 60).
- **Long-term (2031+)**: Enter households as assistants and companions, potentially revolutionizing everyday life across 3.5 billion homes.
- **Core strategy**: Partner with leading global companies in AI, cloud, and research for technology development, and with commercial partners for scaled deployment. The company believes the humanoid TAM will reach $38 billion by 2035 and $1 trillion by 2050.

## Why Work Here
- **High-growth environment**: Company grew headcount by 139% in a single year, indicating rapid scaling and opportunity for career advancement. 65+ open roles suggest strong hiring momentum.
- **Talent from top robotics firms**: Team includes alumni from Boston Dynamics, Sanctuary AI, Dyson, Ocado Technology, Arrival, Wayve, and others — offering a deep learning and collaboration environment.
- **Technical focus**: Engineering and technical roles represent 38% of the workforce, with senior-level hires at 23% of the team. The company emphasizes hardware, AI, machine learning, and control systems.
- **Mission-driven**: Clear purpose to automate undesirable, unsafe, and repetitive work — appealing to candidates who want to make a tangible societal impact.
- **Global presence**: Offices in London (HQ), Cambridge (USA), and Burnaby (Canada), plus operations in 16 countries — offering potential for international mobility and remote collaboration.
- **Innovation culture**: Described as a place where engineers and researchers “move from demo to deployment” and “not just in the lab.” The CTO emphasizes building systems that perform in the real world from day one.
- **Office/Hybrid policy**: Not explicitly stated, but the company has physical offices in three countries and a distributed team across 16 nations — likely supports hybrid/remote with in-office collaboration for engineering roles.

## Sources
1. [thehumanoid.ai](https://thehumanoid.ai/)
2. [thehumanoid.ai/about-us/](https://thehumanoid.ai/about-us/)
3. [thehumanoid.ai/team/](https://thehumanoid.ai/team/)
4. [thehumanoid.ai/careers/](https://thehumanoid.ai/careers/)
5. [LinkedIn Company Page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/humanoidai)
6. [Jobs.ashbyhq.com/humanoid](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/humanoid)

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